Nearly a year after the pandemic first forced the closure of school buildings and a move to distance learning, Cranston’s school system is poised to welcome back all students in grades two through eight for five-day classroom instruction.

“It is my belief, and I know it’s the belief of a lot of people that I’ve spoken to, that the time is right to get our students back to school in person, and do that as early as possible,” Dan Wall, the School Committee’s chairman and Ward 6 representative, said during a meeting of the committee last week at Cranston High School East, citing the state’s improving COVID-19 data.

A special meeting of the committee was scheduled for Wednesday, after the Herald’s weekly deadline, with the sole listed business item being a resolution approving Superintendent Jeannine Nota-Masse’s plan to resume full in-person classes for all elementary and middle school students effective March 8.

The special vote was set following last week’s regular meeting of the committee, during which Nota-Masse presented the broad contours of the new reopening plan.

In a nutshell, Nota-Masse said the plan will allow for all elementary and middle school students to return to classrooms, while a full distance learning option would remain available.

Currently, kindergartners through first-graders – as well as a number of key subgroups, including special education students and language learners – are already back in classrooms five days a week. Grades two through 12 have been operating under a “hybrid” approach, which involves distancing learning for all students on Mondays and the remaining four weekdays split between distance and in-person learning based on alphabetical groupings.

Nota-Masse said returning grades two through eight on a full-time basis will be possible because at the elementary and middle school levels, students remain in stable “pods” throughout the day. That is not the case for high school students, who would continue to utilize the hybrid approach under the superintendent’s plan.

Nota-Masse said the new reopening will require the district to reduce the spacing between students in classrooms, which has been at 6 feet since schools reopened in the fall. Students will continue to be spaced out to the greatest extent possible, she said, while other protocols, such as mask wearing, will remain in place.

She also said an amended plan will be submitted to the Department of Health as part of the distancing shift. She noted that new state guidance is expected soon, and “the science is … moving away from demanding the 6 feet of distance if the children are in stable pods.”

“Other districts did not do that [6-foot distancing],” the superintendent said. “We committed to that for the safety of our students and our staff. And I think we all agree it served us well.”

She added later: “We all have to understand that that 6 feet needs to shrink because of physical space. It’s just logistically, you can’t have more students in a classroom and space them 6 feet apart.”

Nota-Masse also noted that some other issues, such as transportation, would need to be addressed as part of the reopening. Work commenced this week on logistical preparations for the reopening in anticipation of the March 8 start date.

Last week’s meeting also drew, for the first time in months, an audience. The East auditorium was set up for social distancing, with rows taped off on an alternating basis and individual seats marked to keep those in attendance apart.

Postings on social media ahead of the meeting had urged parents to attend and voice their support for a fuller reopening of classrooms. Ultimately, roughly three-dozen community members, including parents and students, showed up.

Anticipating a litany of speakers during public comment, the committee took its agenda out of order, moving up the discussion of the reopening plan to its first order of business.

Nota-Masse offered a preemptive response to the public speakers, saying: “Some of the communications that I received almost made it sound like we don’t want students in schools. And that’s not certainly the case. We do. But I also have a responsibility to make sure we do it thoughtfully, safely ... It takes time, and I know parents and teachers, we’re all exhausted. We all have COVID fatigue. We’ve been at this for a year.”

The comments from committee members suggest there is ample support for a move to reopen classrooms.

“I think we’re way overdue to bring our elementary school kids back to school as soon as possible,” Ward 4 committee member Vincent Turchetta said.

Turchetta also previewed some comments from community members, saying that Cranston is “only one of a couple of districts” not to have returned elementary students to classrooms on a full-time basis. Like some of the public speakers, he also raised concerns over waitlists at various schools that have been used to fill spots in classrooms as they became available.

Citywide committee member Michael Traficante said his daughter, who resides in Virginia, had informed him that her children were heading back to school full time.

“As a former educator, and more importantly as a grandfather, I was elated for my grandkids,” he said, saying the reopening decision is “based on science, not fear.”

Traficante also spoke of the “social and academic decline” among students during the pandemic, adding: “God only knows how long it’s going to take to make up the ground that they lost this past year.”

He concluded: “Because of science … we must make the best decision, the most prudent decision, and certainly the wisest decision. And that decision is obvious.”

Ward 5’s David Alden-Sears said: “There’s no substitute for in-person learning … I’m on board.”

Ward 3 representative Domenic Fusco also voiced support for the reopening plan and spoke of incoming Gov. Dan McKee’s comments in favor of moving educators up in the state’s vaccination campaign.

Ward 1 representative Sara Tindall-Woodman said her elementary-age students are back in classrooms as much as possible, and she will send them to school for more days if she is able.

“Preliminarily speaking, I support getting our youngest children back to school more than they are in school now,” she said, adding: “I am open and want to hear more.”

The comments from district officials and the emergence of the reopening plan appeared to satisfy most of the community members on hand, although some remained critical of the district’s outreach. Some also urged a vote last week rather than during a subsequent special meeting.

“I can’t tell you how happy I am to hear how you all have responded to the situation … I think it’s better late than ever, and I couldn’t be more appreciative,” parent Ed Daley said.

He added: “I think a lot of the issue and the frustration you’ve felt in the emails and communications you’ve received could also be indicative of us not necessarily feeling like we’re getting the straight strategy and answers that we feel like we should have … The rumors of lists and everything else is what frustrates people.”

During an interview Tuesday, Nota-Masse said work had commenced to “prepare classrooms for the return of students.” She also responded to the issue of waitlists, noting that the district has previously communicated to community members, through meetings and correspondence, about bringing individual students back into classrooms as space became available.

“The approach that we took was discussed at meetings before … We talk to parents every single day, and we make accommodations as we can for every kid at every level depending on what we have available to them,” she said.

In terms of the timing of the reopening plan, Nota-Masse said “it was certainly expedited” in the past couple of weeks based on the improving data picture. She noted that the district’s numbers only began showing improvement in mid to late January, and it “would have been premature for us to make a plan until we saw two weeks plus worth of data to give us confidence we were moving in the right direction.”

Nota-Masse said the staffing issues that at times forced school closures in recent months have stabilized. She also said work will continue toward a more complete reopening of the city’s high schools, saying: “I would like to see the high schools reengaged, because I think they are struggling equally.”

She added, however, that the district will continue to evaluate circumstances as they evolve, given the “unpredictable” nature of the pandemic to date.

“If going forward we need to make changes, we will … We’ve had to be very nimble and flexible, and we make decisions based on what is good for the staff and students,” she said.